The WORST Discovery in Jacobs Well for 21 Years!

two divers decide to dive one of the most dangerous caves in the world one diver's body has recovered 10 years later and others takes almost 21 years to recover after three failed attempts and a chance encounter this is the story of Kent morpen Mark Brashear and the attempt to recover their bodies from Jacob's Well in Hayes County Texas Jacob's Well is a freshwater spring that was first recorded around 1850 measuring 12 foot in diameter at the surface of the well it descends to 140 feet at its deepest recorded point and extends 4 300 feet to its furthest recordest points the cool clear water in Jacob's Well Rises up from the Trinity aquifer the surface of the spring effectively sits below the surrounding groundwater level that means water gets pushed up out of the spring by the weights of the surrounding water table in 1924 the flow rates up into the spring was measured at 22 cubic feet per second for the first time in the year 2000 the world stopped flowing since then it stopped flowing four times with the most recent time in July 2022 this happens as groundwater levels drop and so there's no water pressure to create the rising flow into the spring the lower flow rate makes it easier for divers to enter the cave system because they don't have to fight their way against the current it's not a safe cave system to enter while cave diving has its inherent dangers the three things that make Jacob's Well more dangerous are the flow of water that a diver has to work against on their way in the narrow openings between Chambers which are often sloping downwards and unstable gravel that can fill those already narrow passageways one of these restrictions is called the birth canal at around 70 feet deep after divers descend a gravel slope they have to push their way through an opening that can be as narrow as 15 inches depending on how much gravel has made its way down the slope the slope opens into a wider chamber often divers have to dig their way through the gravel then push their equipment through the channel ahead of them and into the chamber once through this narrow channel divers are birthed into the next chamber over the years as many as nine diving fatalities have been recorded in Jacob's well there are possibly more unrecorded deaths today you need a permit to dive the cave system on the 9th of September 1979 two divers arrive at Jacob's Well intense on diving the cave system they're in a group of around 20 people but these two want to go into the cave before the large group can disturb the sediments in the cave at 23 30 on the evening they arrive they enter the water while most others are setting up camp Kent morpen and Mark Brashear are experienced divers in their early 20s Kent is an assistant instructor he's been diving since he was 12. they don't just want to dive the cave first they want to go all the way to the last recorded chamber which has a deadly history Mark and Kent descend down the first chamber where the spring opens to the surface it's a 30-foot drop to a bear drop platform where they then turn to move sideways into the next chamber chamber 2 2 is a long sloping chamber towards the bottom of chamber 2 is a narrowing passage into chamber 3 called the birth canal at around 75 feet deep after traversing the birth canal into chamber 3 kids and Mark find a few other divers exploring what everyone considers the last safe chamber in the cave system Mark and case have their site set on a prize they know has already claimed the lives of four other divers chamber four they descend the sloping gravel floor to the entrance of chamber 4 at around 90 feet deep this is bordering on the depth that divers will start to experience nitrogen Narcosis nitrogen Narcosis is the neurological effect from breathing nitrogen Under Pressure it's caused by nitrogen molecules in your breathing gas that are compressed together Under Pressure that then restrict the flow of neurons in the synapses of the brain divers experience this like drinking martinis the deeper you go the more martinis Kent takes over scuba gear turns around and backs himself into the tunnel that leads into chamber four Mark copies and follows Joe Moy is in chamber 3 and sees mark back his way into the tunnel with only one light and no cave real he swims over and flashes his light at Mark in an attempt to catch his attention and question the judgments of this move in what I would consider tunnel vision Mark doesn't even look up he simply backs into the tunnel and neither Kent nor Mark are seen again Joe Moy is shocked at what he's just seen he waits as long as his Air Supply will allow then he leaves one of his torches at the entrance to the fourth chamber hoping that the two divers will see the light and then he turns around and heads back out of the cave to notify other divers while he makes his Ascent Joe struggles with what he's just seen he knows he's going to the surface to organize a search in his heart he hopes it's a rescue in his head he knows it's a body recovery Joe gets to the surface and lets the other divers know what has happened a call goes out to local law enforcement Paul Battaglia is a police officer and Cave diver at the police station he gets the call to organize a rescue an hour after the first call Paul Battaglia arrives at Don dibble's House Dibble is a former Navy diver cave diving expert a diving instructor owner of the local dive shop and along with Battaglia a member of the Hayes County volunteer body recovery unit double and Battaglia discuss how a rescue will proceed they discussed this as a rescue but they know it's a body recovery the plan to recover a body will vary only slightly from a rescue and so they set their plan in motion they call other members of The Recovery Unit drive to dibble's dive shop to collect equipment and make their way to Jacob's Well about 15 minutes from the dive shop when they arrive it's still dark the group from Pasadena have been in the water searching for the two lost divers they reported double that they haven't been able to recover Mark and they've searched throughout the cave system there are certain the two divers are buried inside chamber 4 because one of the divers believes he saw equipment buried under gravel slide in the passage leading down into chamber four this diver who isn't named in any reports I can find is said to have made two 19-minute Dives back to back spotted the bodies and then went home to rest where he developed decompression sickness and had to go into a recompression chamber for treatment this demonstrates one of the biggest problems in any rescue when divers get into trouble it's usually because they themselves are pushing the safety envelope inside and extreme environments Rescuers are then put in a position where they themselves have to push the envelope even further and to make matters worse they can feel the pressure of a ticking clock which usually results in poor judgments dive planning tables are used to work out how long a diver can stay at a certain depth and then how long they need to stay out of the water between Dives you can stay at 140 feet for only eight minutes before the dive becomes a decompression dive where you have to make safety stops during your Ascent you then need to stay out of the water for no less than one and a half hours before you can go down for another eight minute dive so this diver did two decompression Dives with no interval between them so that he could try and save lives and in the process he got decompression sickness it's still dark and Don's first thought is to wait until daylight his experience recovering ex-persons is that they are normally prepared to wait until sunrise he refers to dead bodies as ex-persons as a way to disassociate from the reality of dealing with people who are no longer alive A coping mechanism he's developed over the years in body recovery but it's just as dark inside the cave as it is at night and so he sends two divers the water to assist the situation they return to the surface and let Don know that it won't be a simple recovery they can't see the bodies but they assume they're buried under gravel in the passageway sloping into chamber fall they're quite unsettled by the idea of trying to pull the bodies out when they can see that more gravel can quite easily slide down the slope and bury any rescuer digging into the narrow passageway at 10 am dancing's two more divers in they start to remove some rock and gravel at the entrance to chamber form their hope is to dig out a channel so they can get into the next chamber but any rocks they remove are quickly replaced by more gravel Don decides to go in himself to assess the situation he and a game wouldn't take a few extra stage tanks which they leave at 25 feet and 75 feet for their return Journey Don gets to the entrance of the chamber at 140 feet deep the passage tapers off between the roof and the gravel he decides to squeeze in slightly to try and cite the back of the passageway he gets shoulder deep when gravel slides in from behind trapping him in much the same way as the two divers whose bodies he's searching for Don's breathing accelerates and his heart starts to pound he knows instantly he's in trouble but in a calm way that only comes with experience he tries to free himself first he tries to move his hands but they're wedged tight he can't even pull the line on the Reel then he wriggles his body more gravel slides in around him even though his head is saying stay calm he's starting to panic he starts to ride and twist to get free he gulps in air and swallows hard and then to his surprise and relief the gravel let's go it slides in underneath him and he's able to make his way back out the passageway but he's gulped and splattered so much air that his tanks are empty slacky dazed his buddy jams his spear regulator into Don's and start to take him back up through the chambers on the other side of the birth canal is a spare cylinder Don needs to get there quick but the air he swallowed is now expanding in his stomach air is compressed under the pressure of the water as an air bubble ascends it expands so the small amount of air Dawn swallowed is now expanding from 140 feet to the surface the air will expand to five times its volume when he swallowed it at the surface Don's stomach has expanded so much he looks like he's pregnant he's taken to a recompression chamber the treatment does nothing to relieve his pain Don's transferred to another hospital where an extra shows his stomach is ruptured and air has filled the cavity in his stomach his doctor describes the operation like cutting into a basketball which instantly deflates Don's hospital will lift him eight thousand dollars in debt because his insurance had lapsed in the weeks that followed the diving Community rallied to raise the funds to help Don out Becca Jacob's Well the recovery operations have progressed with another leader in the diving Community Don broad has a history with Jacob's Well after seeing divers get into trouble broad negotiated with the owner of the land to allow him to manage the site broad started charging an entrance fee which he used to cover the costs of regulating access to the well through this process he could make sure that divers had the right training and experience to dive in such a challenging environment but other dive centers and instructors didn't like paying an entrance fee to the site where they previously had free access complaints mounted to the owner of the land who then let the contracts expire and Broad no longer had the ability to regulate safety standards at the well now broad is back to help recover the bodies of two divers and Broad knows this would have been prevented had he still been in control he puts his frustration aside so he can help recover the bodies of these two young May broad inspects the site that he knows well he lays out a plan to remove the gravel by filling net bags and floating them out with lift bags they will start at the top of the slope and work their way down ensuring there's no gravel higher up the slope to slide down and replace the gravel they dig out from the passageway he lets the families and authorities know this will take many weeks even months of work to excavate the site Kent and Mark's parents have been notified and they arrive at the well Kent's dad is overwhelmed by the support from the diving Community who are rallying to try and find their son's bodies a local bank creates a fund and the community starts to donate the money needed to support the logistics of recovering Kent and mark the families and authorities now have a daunting task to choose who has the best plan to recover their loved ones two divers are dead and missing one recreational diver has already had decompression sickness another professional search and rescue diver has had a ruptured stomach and yet another cave expert has an ambitious plan to excavate the site by hand over a number of months grief stricken and perhaps desperate to recover the bodies of their loved ones as quickly as possible along with the authorities who want a quick fix they look for an alternative option they find this in a commercial diving outfit Schaefer diving company from Freeport the owner of the company Lewis Schaefer tells reporters yeah we'll get them out he trucks in a recompression chamber simple compressors and gravel pumping equipment the cost of the operation starts with five thousand dollars to get the equipment in and runs at two and a half thousand dollars a day Lewis expects it to take two or three days he and his team set up and start pumping out dirt and gravel from the passageway the commercial divers use a surface Air Supply system which means they have an umbilical that provides air from compressors at the surface and two-way communication large rocks are put in burlap bags and pulled out with ropes Guided by volunteer divers while gravel is pumped out using a long pipe that sucks up the gravel like a large vacuum cleaner for several days the routine of pumping out sand and gravel continues on a number of occasions the commercial divers descend in the morning to find more gravel has settled into the passageway they had cleared the previous days almost a week into the operation one of the divers is pinned in a gravel slide but his colleagues are able to dig him out quickly although this unsettles the divers a few more days of digging and they're able to get a camera some way into the passageway a group of people inspect the recording and think they can make out a metal tank but it's not clear enough to be certain the next day they carry on digging until one of the divers is able to squeeze almost all the way through he reports that he can see some of the chamber but can't go far enough to see the whole chamber there are two large Boulders and several tons of gravel that will need to be removed following that Lewis Schaefer's right hand man Bill Wright who's in charge of the dive side gives a press conference to say they've run out of money they aren't diving for free and someone need pay their bills bill and his men hold up in a local hotel room and wait the next few days until finally Pasadena state senator confirms he will underwrite the company's bills to date and then Lewis Schaefer says he will donate the company's time from there on the divers go back to the site after several days of political posturing only to discover that the entire passageway is once again engulfed in gravel a second diet company is called in to give their opinion and they all come to the same conclusion there is simply no way to safely and economically excavate all the gravel from inside Jacob's Well in a way that will allow them to get inside chamber 4 to search for the bodies of Kent and Mark Kent's dad is grateful that so many people have put their lives at risk to help recover their son's bodies but he's also concerned that more people might be injured or even die if they continue to push further into chamber 4. 12 days after the two divers went missing the search is called off Don double recovers from his burst stomach and returns to dive Jacobs Well with a group of friends they set about cementing a great into place that would prevent any divers going further than the birth canal some months later Dibble returns only to find his great has been removed and a note left in place to say you can't keep us out 21 years after Kent morpen went into Jacob's Well his remains were finally recovered in a chance encounter with a group of geologists mapping the cave system his parents found out when a reporter called him for a comment [Music]

Channel: Waterline Stories

Views: 816,014

Keywords: scuba diving, scuba diving accidents, decompression sickness, accidents, commercial diving, saturation diving, sailing, freediving, jacobs well, cave diving accidents, cave diving

Id: 4xGNZYt2rW4

Length: 17min 44sec (1064 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 06 2023